EDITIONS

Follow us

“Ms. Hoda Muthana is not a U.S. citizen and will not be admitted into the United States,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement issued before President Donald Trump’s post on Twitter. | Oliver Contreras-Pool/Getty Images

Trump says he directed Pompeo not to let ISIS bride back in U.S.

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he had directed the State Department not to allow the return of an Alabama woman who in 2014 joined the Islamic State terrorist group, days after the woman made public pleas to be let back into the U.S.

“I have instructed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and he fully agrees, not to allow Hoda Muthana back into the Country!” the president tweeted.

Story Continued Below

Muthana left Alabama, where she was a student, and joined ISIS in Syria when she was 19, becoming a bride for three fighters. She went on Twitter to call for the killing of Americans.

In recent days, however, Muthana, 24, said she regretted her actions and wanted to return to the U.S, according toThe Guardian. She is reportedly being detained in a Kurdish refugee camp.

Pompeo on Wednesday said Muthana was not a U.S. citizen and had no “legal basis” to be brought back to the United States.

“Ms. Hoda Muthana is not a U.S. citizen and will not be admitted into the United States,” he said in a statement issued before Trump’s tweet. “She does not have any legal basis, no valid U.S. passport, no right to a passport, nor any visa to travel to the United States. We continue to strongly advise all U.S. citizens not to travel to Syria.”

Hoda Muthana, seen here in an undated photo, an Alabama woman who left home to join the Islamic State after becoming radicalized online. | Hoda Muthana/Attorney Hassan Shibly via AP

Hassan Shibly, a family representative for Muthana, disputed the secretary of State’s assertion, saying that Muthana was born in New Jersey in 1994.

“The Trump administration continues its attempts to wrongfully strip citizens of their citizenship,” Shibly tweeted. “Hoda Muthana had a valid US passport and is a citizen. She was born in Hackensack, NJ in October 1994, months after her father stopped being diplomat.”

Shibly later tweeted what appeared to be Muthana’s birth certificate, adding that she was born “months after her father informed the US Government he was no longer a diplomat.”

However, a State Department spokesperson said later Wednesday that passport applicants must establish that they are entitled to a U.S. passport, and that there “are many reasons that an individual previously issued a passport may subsequently be found ineligible for that passport.”

“Hoda Muthana was not born a U.S. citizen and she has never been a U.S. citizen,” the spokesperson said, adding that if a passport bearer was not entitled to it, it the passport could be revoked or a renewal application denied. “Ms. Muthana’s citizenship has not been revoked because she was never a U.S citizen.”

The State Department did not respond to a question about whether Pompeo’s statement was in response to a request from Trump.